By Hat
by Florencia7
Summary: Alice returns to Underland sooner than she thought she would. A post-movie one-shot. Tarrant/Alice


A/N: A post-movie one-shot inspired by estherthomas' _Alice in Wonderland FanMix _that can be found in the penguin_jukebox community on LiveJournal :)

Disclaimer: _Alice in Wonderland _belongs to Disney.

**By Hat**

It started out with a hat.

One morning she found a hat on the window sill.

Several days later, trying to get a shoe from under the bed, she found another hat there.

The third hat fell from the tree right in front of her, and she watched it float to the ground and land at her feet.

She would hear a doorbell that nobody else heard, and at the doorstep she would find a hat waiting for her.

In the middle of the night, she would wake up to the sight of a hat on the edge of her bed. Sometimes it was a hat itself that would wake her up, falling onto her face the very moment she opened her eyes.

Within a month, she had a wardrobe full of hats and it was only when she was struggling with the wardrobe trying to close it that she noticed a tiny piece of paper tied to one of the hats.

Holding her breath, she inched her face closer to it, and read:

_Wear me._

Alice stared at the words for a longer while before taking the hat in her hands and hesitatingly putting it on her head.

At first, nothing happened but when she lifted her hands to adjust the hat it suddenly began to grow, falling over her face, her shoulders, covering her entire body all the way down to her toes. She felt the floor vanish from under her feet, and then she was falling, falling fast across the perfect darkness.

"It worked!"

A familiar voice drifted to her, from where she could not see, and she began flailing her arms around to free herself from the layers of fabric under which she suddenly found herself.

She was nearly out of breath when at last she was hit by the rays of light sifting through a crooked window.

She was in a room.

"It's Alice!" she heard somebody call.

She quickly jumped to her feet and swirled around only to come face to face with... the Hatter, the White Rabbit, the Dormouse and the March Hare - all of them staring at her in (respectively) joy, wonder, disbelief, and surprise.

"It's not _the_ Alice," Mallymkum risked a rather hopeless guess.

"Yes, it is," Tarrant whispered, his lips barely moving, his eyes fixed on Alice.

Alice looked at him, still dazed from her short journey, not able to look away, and quite enchanted by the realization.

"I don't think so," Nivens suddenly said, drawing attention to himself.

Everyone looked at the White Rabbit who raised his watch with a shaking hand. "She's early," he explained.

Mallymkum clapped her little hands but quickly wiped the smile off her face under Tarrant's gaze.

Thackery scooted closer to the White Rabbit and tilted his head to the side regarding Nivens' clock with narrowed eyes. "She isn't early," he said after a moment of suspenseful silence. "Your watch is broken," he said and laughed, Nivens' protests getting lost in the general commotion caused by everyone, except for the Hatter and the Alice, beginning to talk at once.

Alice stifled a chuckle, and then looked away from the small crowd, watching Tarrant take a few steps toward her. He bent down to pick up the hat that, as Alice noted somewhat surprised, lay on the floor in its original size in which it had been before she had put it on her head and was literally swallowed by it.

"I knew this one would do the trick," Tarrant said, his eyes sparkling brightly, his lips stretching into a grin. "I knew you'd like this one best," he added in a low voice, outstretching his arm to take a look at the hat.

Alice glanced at the hat and then looked back at Tarrant. "I liked all of them best," she said quietly.

She watched his smile tremble, and he seemed to hesitate for a split second before looking at her again.

"I just..." she started, marveling inwardly at the color of his eyes, his hair; wondering if he was even more iridescent than before or was it perhaps her mind that was imperfect and unable to faithfully remember such overwhelming spectrum of colors? "It took me an awfully long time to read the note," she said at last in a gentle voice, hoping the confession would not make him sad.

But the corners of his mouth twitched and he smiled at her again. "It took me an awfully long time to write it," he admitted, and placed the hat on top of her head.

She smiled and he smiled back, and she began to wonder what would happen if she pressed her smile to his?... for it suddenly occurred to her that their smiles were wondrously similar.


End file.
